Sound Shapes: New Composing Tools DLC Out Today

Hey Sound Shapers, we’re really excited to announce our first wave of DLC: four new packs are coming your way – three Sound Packs and a Curved Terrain Pack. The Sound Packs each include five new instruments, five brand new Beat School levels, and for you Trophy hunters, five new Trophies!

The Sound Packs are $0.99 each, and the Curved Terrain Pack is free. You’ll find everything in our new in-game Sound Shapes Music Shop today. (You can also grab them on PSN, as usual.)

Here’s a short trailer with a track we put together using some of the new sounds. And remember, if you create something you’re digging, tell us on Twitter, Facebook, or Tumblr – we love playing your levels.

Oh, and one (ok, a few) more things… So the community has created over 15,000 levels (!) and we’ve been noting our favorites since launch. But how to share them? We have an idea! Coming in December is the Community Milkcrate – the best user-created content in Sound Shapes gathered and organized into themed albums, so you can find the levels that match your mood or play style. Chill, amped, long, short, tough as nails, and on and on. As part of the Milkcrate, we’ve been chatting with some rad musicians and game industry folks, and they’ll also be putting together collections of their favorites for you (their stuff coming in 2013). The new year will also bring a new vehicle DLC pack but before the big ‘13 we have a little holiday present from everyone here at Queasy — stay tuned!

The DLC Details

Acoustic Sound Pack ($0.99)

Bring some clean analog tones to your game with five new acoustic instruments. Strum and pick a masterpiece with the guitars, dance across the ivories on the piano or thumb the unique sounds of the kalimba.

Drum Kits Sound Pack ($0.99)

This pack is all about rhythm. Snares, hi-hats, toms, and more let you groove to everything from a cool jazz backdrop to a driving rock beat. There’s even an electronic kit for some 80’s hip-hop style jams if that’s more your style.

8-Bit Sound Pack ($0.99)

Compose in the key of chiptune with bleeps, bloops, and other classic game sounds. It’s more than just chiptunes as you’ll get modern electronic synths, bass lines, and loops too. A variety packed pack for sure!

Curved Terrain Pack (free download)

This one’s for the platforming fans out there. Bend, stretch and shape curves to add smooth surfaces to your smooth beats. Many of you have been waiting for this, and it’s free today. (It’s also key for some future DLC, but we’ll keep that a surprise for now.)

Can you just release new solo DLC ??? I mean bringing new Album based DLC, like to increase solo play would be amazing. Sony music could provide the license of know bands, or musicians… I would love to see EP DLC for this amazing game… 4/5 tracks of nw artists, with new universes…

Death Mode isn’t for everyone (I didn’t even come close to finishing it). Take a break and when you’re ready check out some of the Community levels, there’s some great stuff that’s up there in caliber with the Campaign. Greatest Hits is a good place to start.

Great idea on the Milkcrate by the way! I’d rather play from a curated set than spend a lot of time finding something. Can we expect more DLC including new albums/levels designed by the development team?

One of our top Community guys Daftbomb just started a thing called HCL, HardCore Level. It’s like Death Mode but without the randomness – crazy hard stuff. Go to the Community and search “HCL” (his other work is worth checking out too)

Please, developers: do implement some kind of social integration or export feature. I’d love to use it to compose a game music, export, say, as MP3 and use it outside of the game. Or post it on Facebook / YouTube or something. Please! o/

For sharing on social media, we’re thinking about it but that’s a tough one to do well, stay tuned but don’t hold your breath. For MP3 export, that requires all kinds of additional crazy licensing that might not be possible. Again, sayed tuned but don’t hold your breath.

I couldn’t disagree more. I actually though the game was just OK until I unlocked death mode. I though the main game was WAYYYY too easy and provided just about no challenge. The music was cool, but that wasn’t enough for me to recommend the game. Once I unlocked death mode, I couldn’t stop talking about the game and recommending it friends, especially friends with Vitas. Without death mode I would have been very disappointed in the game and the platinum just wouldn’t have been rewarding. To each his own, but, I think it was great idea and made the game a must have.

I bought Sound Shapes on release day because of the hype, I really wish I could get my money back because its really disappointed in the game. I tried to get into it playing different albums and friend challenges, its just not what I expected in gameplay. The difficulty of avoiding enemies at times is WAY too high. Ill pass on everything about this game.

I love this game. Thanks for continuing to support it and for the great price of this DLC. Like others have said, I would also likely buy any level packs you release if you decided to team up with a musician again and make more high quality solo campaign levels.

And I don’t want to think about how frustrating death mode was. I had to get the platinum but that was grueling.

Would be nice if you could add more scales than the 4 available in the editor. Maybe manual editing of the scale? I will probably pick-up the acoustic pack. Been long since I touched the editor. Somehow I miss it :)

I really enjoyed this game. The normal campaign was awesome, the Death Modes were challenging but doable with (a lot of) practice… but my favorite part was the Beat School levels. As these DLC packs add 15 new BS levels (bad pun?), I’ll definitely be picking them up. Loved working those out with headphones on. Thanks for the new content! :D

i would love to see a FREE/better deal for this game for PSN Plus members. been waiting on the wagon to grab this, but is it me or is Sony just waiting closer toward xmas to start giving vita owners decent deals on games? This current week is lackluster for sure, but if i had sound shapes i’d snag this update instantly.

Let me just put it like thisss. im a Hardcore Gamer that is onlyy into God Of War And the grand theft auto and Shank type of games. after watching some gameplay online i went ahead and got this game. some of the best gaming experience i ever hade and one of my top 5 psn games out of my 70 psn games. loveddd the music and the beats and instruments was muchhh better then i expected, im only into hip-hop and alot of the beats in here sound pretty damn tight and hard at times. i enjoy the amazing levels and community levels aswell. Cities was Amazing. this game was made perfectly. A+ from me

I just got all 15 trophies on my vita, but they are not counting towards my overall trophy percentage. Also synced with the PS3, and nothing. I even got a trophy on the PS3 just to see what would happen and that wouldn’t count towards my percentage either. Not cool. DO NOT BUY THIS UNTIL THEY FIX THIS ERROR!!!!!!!!!

This game is probably my favourite on the Vita so far, absolutely loved it. Finally platinum-ed it last weekend, have to say I loved the Death Modes, they were incredibly addictive :) would love some more levels and death modes, but any new content is appreciated as gives me an excuse to play it again!

If I’m not mistaken I believe you said there will be new single player level DLC planned for 2013. This is very good news. I’d love to see more Beck type levels. I thought those were by far the most ingenious levels I have played in a game in a very long time and I’ve been gaming for 30 years!

It would also be cool to have some of the music from Everyday Shooter find its way into the game. :)
Maybe add trophies to ES also… :P

We really dig the Beck levels too. My personal favorites are Cities (esp. the end as it builds) and Touch the People (during the bridges, the musical ones). Check out the Community, there are some levels made by musicians right up there with the best Campaign levels. They can be hard to find but we post some of them on our Tumblr now and more in the future in the coming Community Milkcrate. Glad you’re enjoying the game.